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Asciano chief executive John Mullen has called on state governments to ensure port pricing remains reasonable after assets are privatised to help ­maximise efficiency and productivity for exporters.

The NSW government last week signed off on the sale of a 99-year lease for the Port of Newcastle. The sale of the coal-focused port is expected to fetch more than $700 million.

The NSW government in April sold off Port Botany and Port Kembla to infrastructure investors led by Industry Funds Management for a record $5.07 billion.

Mr Mullen said he was supportive of the privatisation of ports because they were good for the economy and ­productivity in general. But he said the government needed to strike the right balance between monetising the asset and thinking of the long-term efficiency and productivity of the port for importers and exporters.

“We have seen ourselves, privatisation of some of these assets has led to the new owners being extremely focused on extracting maximum return they can, and we’ve seen some pretty massive increases from some of those processes,” he said.

“Ultimately we largely pass on so it doesn’t affect us too badly as a company. But ultimately, the poor old exporter or importer is paying for that.”

The Port of Newcastle will remain subject to the price notification and monitoring regime in place for all ports in NSW.

That means the government must be given notice of any proposed change to charges and provided with the rationale behind it. The government then has the ability to refer any inappropriate pricing behaviour to the ­independent watchdog, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal.

A senior infrastructure industry source said potential buyers would factor the pricing regime into their valuation of the asset.

“[Pricing] is an issue, but one that can easily be addressed by the government,” the source said.

The Port of Newcastle, which is owned by Newcastle Port Corporation, handled 148.9 million tonnes of coal in the 2013 financial year, had $99 million revenue in the 2013 financial year and a $22.8 million profit after income tax.

The bulk of its revenue comes from navigation services in and around the port’s waterways, and port-related leases to mining companies including BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Glencore Xstrata. Most of the infrastructure at the port is owned and managed by the mining companies.